


Notes from the Desert (1) Always Fine

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [42]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: A fuckton of angst, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2132352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Carlos knows he can use his phone, he downloads a voice to text dictation app so that he can continue his diary.</p><p>Spoilers from ep47 onwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes from the Desert (1) Always Fine

**Author's Note:**

> Srsly, it took me ages to figure out what to do about my Carlos's Secret Diary fic.

So my phone works just like Dana said it would and there is pretty good wifi here in the desert beyond the old oak doors although it isn't everywhere, sometimes I just get 4G which is still pretty good. The keyboard on my phone is too small for my fingers so I've downloaded a dictation app so that I can still keep a record of all the awesome science out here, I just talk and words appear then I can copy and paste into a text file. There is So Much to study and measure and record! I'm glad that time runs different here. I get about six or seven hours science time here to maybe about one hour in Night Vale although it is not always as straightforward as that. Dana says that sometimes she sends emails after the reply has already come and phone conversations can be odd as if it's a crossed line, you know, like two people taking turns to say their parts of two completely different conversations with each other. Given the temporal retardation factor I'm amazed that phone calls work at all. Maybe that's why they sometimes don't connect, maybe the retardation factor has to drop to almost one before the phone will allow me to call. I think it is not a constant and I want to study it further but I need someone at home to help out with that.

But that's getting way ahead. I need to go right back to the beginning.

After I saw that Ell was unharmed I got ready to go through the door. I gave my laptop to Aleck and took a bag of equipment. We agreed a time for me to be back at the same door I came through, but I went back with my results and I couldn't open the door. I banged on that door and yelled myself hoarse but no-one opened it for me. I remembered that Ell had banged on the door and yelled too but we had not heard her either. My team is so reliable, they would never leave me here unless something had happened to them to take them away from me. For a while I just sat there waiting and thinking but I got distracted by the strange feeling of the sand and just left them a note pinned to the door to ask them to jam it open with something and started planning all the cool extra experiments I could do here with t he extra time.

I think it's been like a month or something in Night Vale, six weeks max, but so much longer here.

 _So very much longer._ Ah.

Uh, sorry.

Yes. Uh. Right. I'm fine. A scientist is always fine. A scientist. Is always. Fine.

I did some measurements on the sand. I measured its creep and its moisture content and the angle it can sustain without slipping if you pile it up to make a little dune. It is not the same as the sand in the Sand Wastes at all. It is brighter somehow, softer but sharper. I felt it vibrating on a low frequency and when I put my ear down against the ground I heard a low rumbling sound like a subway train or a small earthquake or maybe thunder in the far distance. I checked the sand, and the sound in many places but I kept coming back to the door where I had left the note and my bag of equipment in case my team was there to open it for me and let me back home.

Except one time when I came back to my door the bag was there and the note was there but the door was not. My way back home was gone.

_always fine always fine always fine always fine always hmm_

Hmm. I waited there by the space where my door should be in case it came back. I used the time to process all my measurements, fortunately I had put some pencils and graph paper in my bag in case I needed to do some rough work in the field. I plotted out all the measurements over a grid, mapping out the properties of the sand. Doing all that detailed calculation work and meticulous plotting by hand took ages and calmed me down so that I could focus on what to do next. A scientist never sits around wasting time waiting to be rescued. I decided to explore in a logical way, making measurements of the properties of the sand and the sound and the light everywhere I went, adding them to my graph paper grid-map. The measurements were a little rough because I had to pace out distances because I didn't have a decent length measuring tape, but I got pretty good at stepping out yards. I got a lot of practice.

I explored in a circular pattern, moving out from my not-there-door by an extra two yards every time and repeating my measurements every two yards around the circumference. That kept me busy for weeks. I had some food and bottles of water in my bag and it ran out eventually but I never got hungry or thirsty. I ate a little every few hours if I remembered but I don't think I needed to. The good thing about not having to eat here is that I don't have to, well, you know, either. I didn't have a shovel to bury it easily. I never got really tired either and I started turning my phone on every so often to check local time and make a note of how long it had been since I arrived. Measuring time here is really difficult. The light never goes away. There is no sun that I can see so a sundial would be pointless, just the strange and terrible approaching light on top of a kind of steady glow. Although the light does vary, it is never dark. I lay down to sleep a few times and I think I did sleep, but it made no difference.

I can save so much time by not eating and not sleeping! Ha ha, I used to not eat and not sleep and do science all night at home or in my lab until Cecil came for me and

Oh. _a scientist is always fine scientist always fine always fine always fine always fine_

Breathe. Breathe and wait. I am a _scientist_ and I am _fine._

Anyway when I was exploring and the circle I was charting got really big and I had so many sheets of graph paper taped together to make my grid-map big enough, I saw the mountain and the red light. It was blinking. I decided that the mountain was way more scientifically interesting than the sand and the rumbling and the light even though the rumbling was getting gradually louder and the light brighter. I folded up my grid-map and packed it away, put a funny-shaped boulder at the centre of my circular exploration pattern so that I could resume from the same reference point later if I wanted to. I set off across what looked like a flood plain towards the mountain. I remembered Dana's words from your show, I mean Cecil's show, she talked about finding a mountain and I thought that the probability was quite high that it was the same mountain.

I reasoned that anyone else stuck in this desert who saw the blinking red light atop the mountain would surely go there to investigate because it's just so interesting! I tried to measure out the distance between my missing door and the mountain across the flood plain but I lost count so many times. I walked and walked and the mountain hardly seemed to get any closer. I measured and charted and walked for weeks or months carrying my bag of equipment and thought about the light and the rumbling. But I stopped measuring the properties of the sand. I mean, a scientist has to prioritise and I didn't think the sand was very int... dangerous. My danger meter didn't register the sand most of the time but the rumbling and the light surges kicked it into the red and we all know what that means. The doors would let that light into Night Vale, unravelling... 

I had to stop the light from getting at the doors. I thought I could use some of the equipment in my bag to make a device that would shield the doors from the effects of the terrible light. While I walked I had a lot, really a lot of thinking time and I figured out how to do it. That made me so happy I wanted to stop right there in the middle of the flood plain and start stripping down the electronics and wire everything up to the umbrella you always make me pack in case the Glowcloud appears! I was so glad you... Cecil made me carry it although I thought it was unnecessary at the time and I might have said so.

As I got closer to the mountain I saw that the light was on a lighthouse. How deranged is that! I thought about the geography and the geology of the area. There must have been a sea or a great lake here once and the mountain might have been just a tiny island poking out of the surface. I wondered if I would find any bones or fossils of creatures who might have swum in the sea or the lake and I thought about how I might be able to tell if they were freshwater species or saltwater species and maybe build up a picture of what the ecology of the area might have been like, piecing together food webs based on teeth and size and... Oh you probably don't want to know all of this.

Dana found me as I got close to the mountain. She had the same idea that anyone coming through the doors would make for the mountain. Eventually. We had never met before and I had some explaining to do because I knew who she was from your show and she knew who I was but she didn't know we were together.

Except we're not together. Mmmh

_I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine uh ungh come on Carlos hold it together_

Dana introduced me to the Masked Army. Not all of them obviously, there are a lot of masked warriors and they are so impressively tall! I'd like to study their physiology and anatomy but I think it might be rude to pry so I have not said anything about that. She introduced me to one of their leaders, an impressive warrior called Doug. He helped with the build of my super scientific shielding device and I was glad of his extra strength. I met an angry lady called Maureen in an intern shirt. She seemed pretty pissed off that I didn't remember her from the radio station so I kept out of her way mostly.

Dana updated me on what she knew about what has happened in Night Vale. Shit, Cecil, I wish I could have been there with you. I wish I had come to the lighthouse before, in time to see you and come home with you. I wish I could be there with you now. Uhh. Hmm. _FINE dammit_

I hope my scientists are helping to put Night Vale back together. John Peters, you know, the farmer? He's here too. He's a quiet man but really clever in his own way. Everyone listens when he talks, which is not often. Dana and Doug seem to be in charge here.

I'm going to go now and help find a way home for everybody. We need to get everyone through the oak doors then shut them for good. The doors appear and disappear, not always in the same places and not for any predictable length of time as far as my measurements can tell. We will just have to take a chance. Once the doors are closed against the terrible light and the rumbling, I am as sure as I can be that Night Vale is safe. From this at least, although there is no such thing as absolute safety. But we need everyone through the doors first and Dana has a job to do.

I have to stay here for now ready to shut the doors once everyone has done whatever they need to do. When Dana and the army are done I can follow them through the last door, shut it forever and come home. Uuungh... hmmm... uh. _I have missedyousomuch_ I can't believe that I am so close to coming home at last.


End file.
